The challenge of a High Performance director: ‘I came into this job with my eyes open wide’

Boxing Ireland Performance Director & Team Leader Tricia Heberle speaking during the Team Ireland Open Training Day

At the final briefing for the Irish boxing team before they departed for their Olympics preparation camp, Ireland’s chef de mission Gavin Noble played a video that captured the remarkable feat they already achieved and the passion that drove them to it.

A record-equalling 10 boxers have qualified for the Paris Games. It is the third largest team of any country and matches the total from the 1960 edition in Rome. Noble elected to play clips from the final bout that qualified each boxer for Paris.

“It was very emotional looking at it,” said IABA High Performance director Tricia Heberle. “He said to them, I’ve worked with all of these different sports, I’ve never seen the emotion and joy of any sport or any group of athletes that I see in boxers.” For the next two weeks, Ireland will train alongside Germany, Cuba, Mongolia, India, Australia and the Billy Walsh-coached USA. It is part of a carefully mapped route tailored by their own prior experiences.

“Saarburcken is the final camp. We are there from the 3rd-16th. We have about 12 different countries that we will spar against which is similar to what we did coming into Bangkok. The key thing is the quality of sparring in the last 30 days. The Germans run camps better than anyone.

“Before Tokyo, we went to Miyazaki. Again, a German-run camp, a lot of countries came in, hugely contained because of Covid. But it was part of the contribution to prepare the athletes for Tokyo. It’s a similar model.” Heberle was the Tokyo Olympics Chef de Mission and formerly a highly decorated international hockey player for her native Australia. She took over last year after the former head of the HighPerformance Unit Bernard Dunne resigned in 2022.

“There is a number of things I have tried to push,” she explained. “I always felt there were gaps.

We’ve really pushed performance analysis. We are doing the best scouting of opposition fighters we have probably done. I’m confident in saying that. We are doing more work with coaches and the athletes to get them interested in not just looking at their own performances but looking at some of the opposition fighters.” It wasn’t going to be simple. She wasn’t blind to that.

“I came into this job with my eyes open wide that it was going to be a challenge. I follow media. I obviously worked really closely with Bernard in 2019 from the European games through the Olympics.

“I was aware of the pressures he was under before we even went to Tokyo. I’m not naïve to what I was stepping into. But you either spend a lot of time thinking about it, talking about it and being distracted or you actually look at what you have to do. I had a very clear picture of what had to be done because that was part of my brief.” Did she face any bigotry? Do you need to ask?

“Absolutely. I’m a woman. I’m Australian. I’m gay. I’ve been an absolute imposter; I was probably an imposter when I was Chef de Mission as well because everyone looks and thinks this should be someone else. ‘Surely someone else can do the job?’ There probably are lots of people who can do the job.

“But I was given an opportunity. I’m a professional sportsperson with a company. I know what my strengths are. I also know what my limitations are. There are people who will say what is an Australian doing as a performance director?

“You can have a whole list of reasons why not. I focus on the why. The why is I understand performance sport. There is a particular recipe that you can apply to every single sport. Then you’ve to tweak it depending on the dynamics and requirements of the sport.” There is a proven formula to keep the noise away: winning. Heberle and the Irish team don’t shy away from that. The best answer to the Amy Broadhurst controversy was for four boxers, including Gráinne Walsh to qualify at the Thailand tournament. That is when the payoff is worth the cost.

“I’m really pleased I got an opportunity to work with an Irish sport, an iconic Irish sport like boxing,” said Heberle.

“This is my last job. I’m returning to Australia. That is definite. I’ll be there by December. I will continue to do consultancy. If someone had said to me, ‘Trica what is the last job you will be do in a professional career over almost 35 years?’ I’d never have said Irish boxing.

“The enjoyment I get from this sport. Even with all the things that happened, the controversies, it is completely overwhelming. I genuinely love working with this sport. I have a great belief in what we have done over the past 13 months.”